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Ipod I-Touch V NW A808 comparison!

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G-Man

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Hi everyone.

I always think people get a lot from these kind of articles, myself, I always look on the net extensively to see what real folks feel about the diference between products, when the get their hands one, try it out with their own headphones and musical tastes, so here's my little contribution.

A little background first, I've been an avid fan of the Sony kit for years, and I own an HD-1, as well a NWA808, and I purchased the 808 to replace the HD1, as accidentally damaged the screen when it was in back pocket one day. Ooops, oh well. As I'd gone to great lengths encoding hundreds of albums in ATRAC3+ 256K, I thought it fitted well. And it does. When I put it together with My Shure E500 headphones, its frankly an stunning combination, and one which I've been very, very happy with. Its saddened me a lot that Sony have decided to drop this standard really, and that and the complete lack of any peripheral kits for the car have sought me to seek other avenues.

So, I thought about my pending purchase hard, and then stumbled literally on the IPOD I touch. Wow, what a stunningly cool piece of kit that is. Now, clearly its not the same form factor as the NWA808, and anyone who is looking for something small to simply stash in their pocket, my personal opinion is that isn't it. That said, its not large, and its not heavy. So, I guess the big question is, how does it really compare...?

Well, the Ipod is 16Gb, and I've bought it with the intention of using in my car instead of using a CD multiplayer, clearly it has this advantage as the Sony charges when on USB charge, and doesn't play, also there aren't any kits for holding it, and so on, and so on.

So, onto sound, what does it sound like....? Big question I guess. To give the Ipod a decent chance, I encoded some music at 320Kbp, which is clearly a higher bit rate than the A808. So, does it sound as good the A808....? Er No. Fraid not. Probably quite a lot worse really. In isolation the Itouch sounds a nice piece of kit, plays music openly, has niceish bass, fairly clear treble. However, when you select the same tracks encoded at 256K on the 808, its much, much clearer, tonally balanced, smoother, and the bass simply blows it out of the water!

The biggest downside for the Ipod is the EQ to my mind. All the EQ settings are pre-selected, and hence you can create your own. No matter which setting I create, its, well rubbish. I think if they'd provided a user configureable EQ, then perhaps it might have been in with a slight chance, as it is, well, I have to run it with the EQ off. Its also worth noting, the Shure E500 earphones are very, very easy to drive, with the Sony, I have it on level 13 most of the time, and its loud. with the Ipod, its at about 75% of volume level setting, so clearly it can't drive earphones as well as the Sony either.

Now its worth noting, that the Ipod is a tremendously cool piece of kit. the Menu systems, the functionality of the product is way better than the Sony, not that I don't like the Sony at all, but the Itouch is very, very nice and ergonmic to use. It has a built in web browser for surfing the net, (and it works really well), their is a connection to Itunes, (bit of a marketing gimmick to my mind), but the Ipod is a very, very enjoyable piece of equipment to play with. Though I guess some of this is just gadget tastic playing!

So in summary, am I happy with the Ipod? Well, yeah, I am. Its going to be used in the car pretty much, and no where else. For my long commutes on trains, and for those times when I really want to enjoy music sonically, I'll be sticking the phones in the A808.

Hope you found this useful!

G-Man

p.s. I'll happily post some pics up off the two if people are interested enough to care.. :-)

Edited by G-Man
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G-man,

I also have an A808 which I use every day. I tried THREE different iPod Touh units; 1 8GB and 2 16GB from weeks 37 and 38. ALL of them had a horrible hiss that was easily discernible at medium to high volumes. Do you notice this or not? I have heard that the problem has been addressed in the newer units, but I am unwilling to buy another one since my A808 and PSP sound great and both work seamlessly with my PS3. Yep you heard it here, I don't use my PC for music anymore. it is all on my PS3. I love how I can connect either device to the PS3 and transfer my music back and forth.

This is a feature that MS should add to the xbox360/zune. Let me know if you notice any hiss and what week your Touch is. Thanks.

Joe

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I popped into Selfridges today and saw this, had a play with it as the rep had it so I asked him to let me use it, put in the earphones which came with the nwa808 and nahh didn't sound as good as the nwa808! The screen is nice tho, big size the simpson episodes looked good, however 16:9 films do look smaller due to the black bars and it being a 4:3 screen, touch interface was easy to use, nice thin player.

I will wait till the Sammy YP-P2 8gb comes out, with it having a 16:9 screen it should show videos more fuller than the touch. Hmmmm to keep the nwa808 which I have been happy with several months now, or buy either the touch or sammy after it's been released. I'll purchase it from AMP3 and test it and return if neccesary.

P.S was also playing with the new Leopard on mac its brilliant! Wish I had enough money to buy a mac dohh.

Edited by NOiPod
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G-man,

I also have an A808 which I use every day. I tried THREE different iPod Touh units; 1 8GB and 2 16GB from weeks 37 and 38. ALL of them had a horrible hiss that was easily discernible at medium to high volumes. Do you notice this or not? I have heard that the problem has been addressed in the newer units, but I am unwilling to buy another one since my A808 and PSP sound great and both work seamlessly with my PS3. Yep you heard it here, I don't use my PC for music anymore. it is all on my PS3. I love how I can connect either device to the PS3 and transfer my music back and forth.

This is a feature that MS should add to the xbox360/zune. Let me know if you notice any hiss and what week your Touch is. Thanks.

Joe

There is a clicking noise when you turn it on, and when you lock/unlock the Itouch for sure. There is a definately a background Hiss when you have it on and not playing any music, though I can't say as I've noticed a hissing noise when its on, at any volumes to be really honest. I think mine is running version 1.1 of the Touch software as well, as there are no software updates in Itunes it informs me.

I know people say that Itunes is the bollox when it comes to ripping music as well. I don't think it rips any quicker than Sonicstage, well not on my PC, though it transfers music like a rocket most definately. Its still quirky to use I've found, and it stops ripping all the time. The album art featire is pretty poor as well I think, even worse than Sony's attempt. :-)

All round, I'm pretty happy with the Itouch, Battery life seems excellent, no better nor worse than the Sony, it does sound ok, and it is brilliant fun and gizmo to mess with, it just doesn't sound as good, though perhaps I notice it more as I have such high end earbuds?

G-Man

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